Definitions
Definitions of Personality Disorder.
Health professionals have not always agreed how best to identify personality disorders, but over recent years the World Health Organisation and the American Psychiatric Association have produced these definitions below.
ICD definition
The International Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders (ICD-10) (World Health Organisation 1992), defines a personality disorder as: ‘a severe disturbance in the character logical condition and behavioural tendencies of the individual, usually involving several areas of the personality, and nearly always associated with considerable personal and social disruption’.
DSM 1V definition
The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association 1994) defines a personality disorder as: ‘an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment’
DSM 1V classification
There are nine categories of ICD-10 personality disorder and ten categories of DSM-IV personality disorder. The classification scheme is unwieldy as personality disordered patients rarely belong to just one category of personality disorder. However, the DSM clustering system provides a useful solution to this problem by grouping the subcategories of DSM-IV personality disorder into three broad ‘clusters’: Cluster A, B and C.
Further information about Personality disorder: